Breastfeeding Journey Part 2; E weans

E weaned at 17 months, 90% by herself.. but she still holds onto my chest, inside my shirt. It makes strangers laugh and makes my sisters uncomfortable but I let her do it because I know that’s her comfort. I know that when she does that, she’s nervous, sleepy, or just telling me hi. E is now almost 19 months old and has been doing this since she was 11 months.

E also still studies my chest but in a different way. She counts my moles and says “mole” and tilts her head in a playful way as she does it. She points and says “milk” and smiles + giggles when she lifts my shirt. A lot of other breastfeeding moms said that they weaned their kid WAY before the 2 year mark and to be honest, I was nervous that E was never going to wean. She wasn’t sleeping through the whole night yet and this was one of my main concerns, she wanted to nurse constantly and she even started to crawl up to me in her sleep to do it. I am pregnant with our second child and I knew I needed a break before the new baby came and I knew my supply would drop but I wanted E to decide when she wanted to stop nursing. My midwife told me I could breastfeed until I had any pre-term labor signs so I stuck with it. Once I hit about 14 weeks pregnant I started having Braxton hicks constantly and it scared me, my mom and husband urged me to stop breastfeeding. Fortunately, E was on the same page. I started to tell her “no milk” when she would lift my shirt. At first she was sad and didn’t understand. Then after a few days she would become embarrassed when I said “no milk” and didn’t know how to respond so she would giggle and pretend to nurse. She did it in such a “big girl” playful way, I couldn’t help but laugh every time. E would make drinking noises and eventually would bring her dolls to “pretend nurse” as well. I knew she was starting to wean and though I was sad because I could see that our time together, this journey, was coming to an end… I was okay with it because she mostly did it on her own. She turned into such a big girl within a few days and it seemed like she understood that she didn’t necessarily need my milk anymore. It took E 1 whole week to wean and she immediately started sleeping thru the night. While she falls asleep she does like to lift my shirt and hold onto my chest and sleep with her head on top of me. Sometimes she’ll stay like this the whole night and parts of my body fall asleep or get sore but I don’t mind one bit. I know this stage will be short and I’ll miss it someday.

update: E is now 22 months and she still lifts my shirt to hold onto my chest and will lay on me for about 5 minutes or so, then she gets up and puts my shirt back down to cover me. So sweet. She is growing up so fast! She then puts her hand inside of my shirt and falls asleep. Ah, I love motherhood.